


Hellebore

by unsmilingchuck



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: And Features Even More Crying, But the Comfort is Paltry and Several Thousand Years Removed From the Hurt, Coercion, Crowley Has A Vulva (Good Omens), Crying, Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional Manipulation, Extremely Dubious Consent, Gabriel Has a Penis (Good Omens), Hurt/Comfort, Other, The First Part is Good, The Second Part is Mostly For Me but You Can Read It Also
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-11
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:40:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22661149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unsmilingchuck/pseuds/unsmilingchuck
Summary: “We could try it, if you were curious.” Gabriel’s voice is nearly flippant, as if he’s offering Crowley a chance to see the latest prototype for mealworms.“Try it?” echoes Crowley. He tries to imagine himself as one of the little light people, their limbs bent and open, over and around and inside each other. He’s only ever worked with the plants, with spore capsules and vegetative propagation and cross-pollination. It’s not the same. It isn’t…intimate.“Yeah. It’ll be fun,” says Gabriel, all smiles now. “I’ll be Adam, you can be Eve.”A fill for a prompt on theTadfield Advertiserwhich asked, "What if Crowley did Fall for an innocent question--'I wonder what it feels like?'"
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley/Gabriel (Good Omens)
Comments: 35
Kudos: 143





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [StarkRogers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarkRogers/gifts).



> Typically I think tags can speak for themselves, but I do want to emphasize here that while this is not a physically violent fic there's a lot of coercion and manipulation, and while the situation is treated by the characters as being consensual it is most definitely not. Just like...know thyself and make good choices.

He’s only supposed to deliver a message—a scroll the size of his palm, set with his supervisor’s seal, because his supervisor had spent too much time in the pollinators meeting and was now running late for tundra herbivores. He’s supposed to be in and out in only a minute or two, but while Gabriel is still reading the scroll a display case on his desk catches Crowley’s eye—a little glass cube with two human figures inside, made of light, entwined in each other and moving gently. The brass tag attached to the base reads “Copulation fig. 3a”. 

“Something on your mind?” Crowley nearly jumps, embarrassed at having been caught staring. Archangels are overseeing the whole of Creation, directly involved with all sorts of complex and delicate projects—everything from complex geological formations to the intricacies of the human brain. He worries for a moment that he’s spying on something classified, something he shouldn’t be seeing. But Gabriel is smiling at him mildly, as if he doesn’t mind his snooping. 

“It looks…interesting,” says Crowley, watching as the figures pulse softly behind the glass. 

“It’s sex,” says Gabriel, adding his scroll to one of the many piles of paper on his desk. “Reproduction, but also just pleasure. Makes the whole “be fruitful and multiply” thing easier.” 

“Of course,” says Crowley. And then, to be polite, “they seem very happy.” Not that they’re real, of course, just little models made of light. But their movement are loose and relaxed, soothing in their repetition. And their faces, even blurred at scale, do suggest a sort of contentment. 

“We could try it, if you were curious.” Gabriel’s voice is nearly flippant, as if he’s offering Crowley a chance to see the latest prototype for mealworms. 

“Try it?” echoes Crowley. He tries to imagine himself as one of the little light people, their limbs bent and open, over and around and inside each other. He’s only ever worked with the plants, with spore capsules and vegetative propagation and cross-pollination. It’s not the same. It isn’t…intimate. 

“Yeah. It’ll be fun,” says Gabriel, all smiles now. “I’ll be Adam, you can be Eve.” 

Crowley feels himself nod with no great investment in the response. He doesn’t know Gabriel, not really—his boss’s boss’s boss, whom he rarely reports to directly, tucked away in this gleaming corner office where nobody talks to him unless he wants them to. So he wants Crowley to be here, and to try this with him. Maybe it would be nice. It’s clearly supposed to be important. 

With a snap Gabriel’s desk is suddenly empty, the piles of documents and notebooks and models vanished into the ether. Crowley finds himself pressed against one end of the large expanse of marble, Gabriel’s hands tugging at the pin holding his robe together. He laughs when Crowley jerks away. 

“Skittish, huh? Remind me to show you the rabbits later. I think you’ll really get a kick out of those.” Gabriel manages to unclasp the pin and begins unwinding the long band of cloth from around Crowley’s shoulders. “Just relax, okay? It's easy. I’ll take care of you.” 

Crowley feels something prickle along his skin, although it’s hard to say what or why, given that Gabriel’s office is kept at the perfect ambient temperature. Maybe it means he’s excited. Maybe it means he wants to have sex, like how the birds in the aviary show off brightly colored feathers, or sing and dance for one another. He watches as Gabriel peels off his own clothing, looking for a sign, but all he sees is the hard length of his cock stretching up towards his stomach. Gabriel grins when he sees Crowley watching. 

“Like what you see? Perks of getting all the spec sheets.” Then he frowns, looking down at the space between Crowley’s legs, the flat and unremarkable skin where his legs meet. “What, I make this perfectly nice cock and you don’t give me anything to put it in? You’re suppose to be Eve here.” 

“I don’t—“ Crowley feels wrong-footed suddenly, warm under Gabriel’s scrutiny. “I don’t know how. Sorry.” He waits for the reprimand, but Gabriel just laughs. 

“Of course, how could I forget—you’re down in plant unit, right? It’s fine, I can fill you in.” He begins to push Crowley backwards, onto the vast expanse of the empty desk. “You just hop on up and I’ll take care of everything.” 

Crowley does his best to go limp as he lies back, letting Gabriel arrange his legs so they’re folded against his abdomen. He has a vague feeling of exposure, although he doesn’t know what’s being exposed until Gabriel places a hand between his legs and does something that sends his whole body shuddering. 

“There you go,” Gabriel is all smiles again, hand exploring his new creation. “What do you think? Like it?” 

Crowley tries to find the words but settles for a nod when he comes up short. It’s hard to tell where the sensations of his newly modified body stops and where Gabriel’s touches start. He feels new muscles twitch and tense every time Gabriel’s fingers brush the nub of flesh towards the top—clitoris, his brain supplies, from one of the piles of papers so recently disappeared. There’s a smell too, sharp and complicated, a cocktail of clashing hormones all mixed together. Crowley props himself up on his elbows to watch as Gabriel pulls his hand away, fingertips shiny with fluid. He opens his mouth to apologize again but Gabriel cuts him off, wiggling slick fingers where Crowley can see them. 

“You know this means?” Crowley shakes his head mutely. “It means you’re ready to have sex! And excited, too. This is gonna be so much fun.” Gabriel puts a hand on Crowley’s chest, pushing him back down onto the table. “Just sit back, relax, and let me do the work, okay? It’ll feel great, I promise.” 

It doesn’t feel great. It burns. 

Crowley feels the stretching of new skin and unworked muscles, tensing against the intrusion. Gabriel’s own cock had seemed reasonable at a distance, but now with the head of it pushing against his entrance it feels impossibly large. He wraps a hand around the edge of the desk and squeezes, trying to kept himself from moving away as Gabriel presses deeper and deeper. His hands are wrapped around Crowley’s legs, fingertips digging into flesh. 

It takes Crowley a moment to realize he’s talking again, quieter than the before, perhaps more to himself than anyone else. 

“Oh, that’s good. That is so good.” His eyes are half-closed, entranced by the space where their bodies are joined. “That’s just awesome.” 

Crowley thinks that maybe he should say something too, as soon as he can sort through the ten million electrical signals coursing through his body, but then Gabriel starts to move. After a moment he’s realizes it’s like the figures in the little glass case—back and forth, back and forth, a slow rocking that pushes their bodies closer and closer together. His new internal muscles relax little by little with each movement, although the skin around the entrance still feels raw. He thinks about touching the clitoris part again, like how Gabriel was touching is earlier, but he isn’t sure if that would be rude, if Gabriel would take offense. 

Suddenly Gabriel groans above him, hands squeezing Crowley’s thighs as his stills. Crowley feels a flood of something warm deep inside him, as Gabriel’s cock twitches. Seed, he supposes, like the fluff inside of a milkweed pod, but warmer and wetter. Human. 

Crowley watches Gabriel’s face as he pulls away and out of his body, searching for regret or discontent. Gabriel’s moments are loose and relaxed, and his expression seems pleased. He grins when he catches Crowley looking. 

“Wow. That was really something, huh?” He grabs his robe from the back of the chair and begins to wrap it around himself. “We should do that again sometime. Not right now, obviously. I mean, I’ve got a meeting in here is five minutes!” He laughs, and Crowley is suddenly trying not to imagine other angels walking into the office and seeing him here, lying on the desk, as Gabriel’s seed begins to drip out of his body and run down the crease of his thigh. Before he can retrieve his own robes though, Gabriel stops halfway through dressing himself. 

“Wait a minute, where are my manners? You haven’t finished yet have you?” 

“I—I don’t know?” 

Gabriel laughs. “Oh, if you did, you’d know” His hands are suddenly back on Crowley’s body, reaching toward the thatch of hair between his legs. “Two shakes, don’t worry, we got time. You’ll love this. This is the best part.” 

Gabriel’s hands rest on Crowley’s hip, the pad of his thumb pressing against the clitoris. Crowley feels himself tense again as he begins to move his thumb in slow circles—sometimes it feels like the earlier gentle touches, a warmth curling low in his belly, but other times the pressure veers into pain. He closes his eyes, mostly trying to block out Gabriel’s searching expression. He hopes this isn’t a test. It feels like a test. 

He must pass though, because the tightness in his muscles abruptly loosens all at once, in a spasm that leaves his gasping. Crowley comes back to himself and realizes he’s been pushing his hips up towards Gabriel’s hand, the same way Gabriel had been rutting against him mere minutes ago. Gabriel is beaming. 

“See? I told you the would be fun. Wasn’t it fun?” 

Was it? It was relief, certainly, a slight easing of the pain which had begun building when Gabriel first pushed into him. The haze of chemicals flooding his body feels nice, though fading quickly. And if he’s finished then he can go back to his plants now. He’d love to go back to his plants. 

“Yes,” says Crowley, voice scratchier than he expected. He swallows. “Fun. Thank you.” 

“Anytime, sunshine.” Gabriel reaches a hand out to help Crowley off the desk, tacky with his release. “I wasn’t kidding about the meeting though. They’re waiting outside, actually.” He laughs again, as though this is all some great joke that only he understands. 

Crowley slides off the desk, clutching Gabriel’s hand in case his shaking legs betray him. There’s a rush of air behind him as the piles of papers and notebooks are retrieved from the ether and returned to their proper place. He considers getting rid of the residual ache in his abdomen, but quickly dismisses the idea—he doesn’t want to accidentally vanish the new parts of his body which Gabriel has given him. His boss’s boss’s boss, Crowley reminds himself as he finishes dressing and slides his pin back in place. 

“I’ll let you know if I need anything else,” says Gabriel, already back in his chair, sorting through his papers for whatever it is he needs for the next meeting. The light figures are still moving in their box, joined at the hip. Crowley nods, and then bows, just for a good measure, before backing towards the office door as fast as he can without running. 

It’s not long after the visit to Gabriel’s office that Crowley gets reassigned. His supervisor gives no reason for the move, simply telling him to pack his desk and walk up six flights of stairs to his new department. The new department turns out to be stars and constellations, and he becomes one of the many angels sitting at rows of long tables, carefully shaping the points of lights that will one day fill the sky in one long band, visible from every place on Earth. Crowley thinks, privately, that there’s less artistry to it than plants, but he doesn’t complain. The repetition of it is soothing sometimes, almost meditative. 

He sees Gabriel more, working on the stars. His promotion removes a layer of management between them—Gabriel is now merely the boss of his new boss. If the other angels find it strange how frequently the two of them meet alone in Gabriel’s office, they make no mention of it. Sometimes Crowley wonders if he should ask them what their meetings are like, but he can never quite find the words. For some reason, the idea of trying to explain what happens in Gabriel’s office makes him uneasy. He knows it isn’t wrong—and archangel couldn’t do wrong, couldn’t be wrong. But the way Gabriel talks makes it sound like this is something only they share, their own special project together. So he contents himself with red giants and blue dwarfs, and when Gabriel asks him to climb on top of the great marble desk he does so, even when his legs shake just a little. 

Gabriel calls him Eve. “My Eve,” his groans next to Crowley’s ear as his empties himself inside him. “My beautiful Eve,” as Crowley shudders under his hands. “You make such a great Eve, you know?” when they’re lying together afterwards, no longer joined but still pressed together, while Crowley mentally lists all the plants he’s invented until Gabriel says he can leave. 

Sometimes they don’t have sex at all. Sometimes the two of them just sit in Gabriel’s office, Crowley perched on Gabriel’s lap, while Gabriel shows him other projects he’s been working on—field mice who vibrate gently in his palm, soft and squeaking, or salamanders with glossy skin and sticky feet. He looks at blueprints of what will one day be called the Alps, Gabriel’s arm wrapped snugly around his waist, nodding along with his explanations of glaciers and snowpack and tourism-based economies, even if he doesn’t really get it. 

One day when Crowley visits him, Gabriel doesn’t remove his own clothing, or pull Crowley down into his lap. He undresses Crowley, helps him onto the marble desk, lying on his back with feet braced against the edge, but then he just stands between his legs. Crowley feels a question rise at the back of his throat, but Gabriel answers before he can vocalize it. 

“I want to try something—a little experiment. We’ve made some modifications on your end, and I really think you’ll like them.” He reached out to what Crowley has learned to call a vulva, unchanged since he first formed it, and cups a hand over the folds. Crowley feels a ripple in his lower abdomen, cells multiplying and reshuffling under Gabriel’s touch. It’s hard not to squirm. 

Gabriel is still talking. “You know, these meetings we have, they’ve been so useful. I really can’t thank you enough—there’s nothing like hands-experimentation to really show you what you’re working with. Consider this the fruits of your labor.” He winks. 

Crowley almost opens his mouth to ask what he means when Gabriel pushes two fingers inside him. It stings, but it isn’t the unusual burn of his cock, and Crowley feels his own body relaxing slightly as the fingers begin to move in and out, stretching just a little. It’s almost gentle, soothing, until Gabriel suddenly crooks his fingers and Crowley shrieks before he can stop himself. 

Every nerve ending is alight with sensation, so overwhelming that his first instinct is to pull away. That only succeeds in further grinding the newly-sensitive spot inside him against Gabriel’s bent fingers. It takes him a moment to realize that the shallow panting which fills the room is his own, fighting through wave after wave of what would probably be pleasure if it didn’t feel like drowning. The whole display sends Gabriel into a fit of laughter. 

“Pretty crazy huh? We’re still fine-tuning, but I thought you might enjoy a test drive, given your contributions to the project. You’re the best Eve we’ve got.” All Crowley can do is nod, still panting, toes curled around the edge of the desk top to keep himself from bolting. 

Something tightens in his chest, but before he can examine it Gabriel is moving his fingers again. He scratches against the sensitive spot with his fingertips, and then brings his thumb back up to Crowley’s clitoris. Crowley gasps, choking on nothing as the muscles in his abdomen tighten. It’s like the other times Gabriel has touched him, except instead of an erratic drip of sensation he feels like he’s been shoved underwater and held there, suffocating under the warmth building between his legs. Gabriel’s rhythm is maddeningly persistent, without variation or reprieve, and Crowley finds himself biting at his own hand to keep the breathy noises clawing at his throat from escaping. Gabriel doesn’t notice, too engrossed at the sight of his fingers buried in Crowley’s body. 

Eventually the dam breaks. Crowley feels himself arching off the desk as seemingly every muscle in his body tightens and then slackens, before collapsing again. The warmth that had been building low in his gut floods out, coating his thighs, the marble desktop, Gabriel’s fingers. Everything is too bright, too hot, too sensitive, and the urge to crawl out of his burning skin is overwhelming, until the wave of sensation that nearly consumed him abruptly collapses. 

His vision blurs. He feels distantly exhausted, like a soaked rag twisted until all the moisture is removed. 

“Are you crying?” Gabriel leans forward into his vision, brows knitted in concern. 

Crowley touches a hand to his cheek, startled to find it damp. Tears. He opens his mouth to apologize but the only sound is a hiccup of air as his chest shudders, and then a long, broken noise that must be a sob. He’s crying. Why is he crying? 

Gabriel stares at him for a moment, calculating, until he reaches to pick up Crowley’s robe from where he dropped it onto the floor. “For your face,” he clarifies, as Crowley sits up on the edge of the desk and takes it from him. He presses a corner of the cloth to his cheek, and then his eyes, trying to blot away the tears as his hiccuping subsides. He feels warm under Gabriel’s scrutiny, like he’s failed him somehow, shaking and crying here on his desk. 

“What’s going on, sunshine?” Gabriel’s voice is soft as he tucks a few loose strands of hair back behind Crowley’s ear. “Everything okay? If there’s something wrong I can bring it back to the team, patch it up for the next version. The feedback you have to offer is incredibly valuable.” 

Crowley shakes his head frantically. For some reason the idea of sharing this makes his throat close all over again, eyes watering. It should be fine. Gabriel would’t do this if it wasn’t fine. But he can’t shake the feeling that something is wrong, something which might bite him if he leans in too close. 

“It’s just…” Crowley’s voice cracks. He hiccups, swallows, tries again. “It’s so much.” That must be the right answer, because Gabriel brightens considerably. 

“Of course! Of course it’s going be be overwhelming. First time, different parts, new sensations.” A few objects that usually cover the desk materialized back through the ether, just enough for Gabriel to start scribbling some notes as his explanation continues. “The tear ducts, we added those to regulate emotions, push stuff out if too much builds up. The design team must’ve overshot, made it too good, and everything’s getting rerouted through them. Or maybe the two of us just work great together.” He pauses to wink at Crowley. Crowley attempts a smile back, but the corners of his mouth refuse to budge. He focuses on breathing normally instead, as Gabriel continues his writing. 

Eventually, the fact that he’s more or less naked while Gabriel is clothed starts to eat at him. He tries to get off the desk himself, one hand still clutching his robe, and barely manages to stay upright. Gabriel doesn’t offer to help him dress so he does it himself, trying the hide the damp spots where none of his coworkers will see them. When Gabriel looks up again he seems surprised to find Crowley still standing there, and dismisses him with a wave. 

Crowley leaves the office in a daze which doesn’t clear until his finds himself back in the plant room, his old workstation, a riot of colors and scents that nearly leaves him dizzy after the starkness of stars and constellations. He wanders between the tight rows of greenery, letting lilies and roses brush against him until the scent of sex which still clings is perfumed beyond recognition. It’s only then that he crawls underneath the drooping branches of a great white pine, curling up between its gnarled roots, as he waits for the tightness in his chest to loosen again. 

It’s after that meeting that he starts visiting the archives, when he isn’t working on stars or in Gabriel’s office. He’s not really sure what he’s looking for, but he spends most of his time sorting through material on biological reproduction. He doesn’t check anything out, of course—he has not idea how he might explain his new interests to the archivists, given that he still works on stars—but that doesn’t mean he can’t find a quiet corner of the archive and read there. Well, less reading and more scanning, looking for…something. 

The amount of information is nearly overwhelming but Crowley soldiers on, under the assumption that he’ll know what’s he’s looking for when he finds it. The kingdom Animalia, he soon finds out, is brimming with all manner of complicated reproduction methods. The dolphins impress him, especially given that they live their lives in water and yet require air to breathe. The snakes confuse him. The ducks make him squirm, although he isn’t sure why. 

It takes takes Crowley a long time to work up the nerve to check the archive’s thin section on humans—weeks or even months, perhaps, although weeks and months hadn’t been invented yet. The latest updates are still classified, so everything here is mostly old planning documents. He doesn’t expect to be all that surprised by them, but the unease hits almost instantly, as soon as his eyes land on phrases like “mutual pleasure” and “affirmative consent”. He reads every little pamphlet and memo on courtship rituals, stares far too long at minimalist sketches of intertwined bodies, until he starts with the realization that he’s spent too long here, and Gabriel will be wondering where he is. He tells himself to forget about what he’s read as he shoves the papers back onto the shelf, but instead they cling to his mind like burrs. 

He doesn’t bring it up during that meeting, though. Or the next one, or the one after that. In the end, it’s the next time Gabriel says he wants to try another experiment, backing Crowley against the edge of the desk and unwinding his robe. 

“What if I say no?” Crowley blurts out, leaning backwards against the cool marble. He’s shaking again, worse than usual. 

“Huh?” says Gabriel, hands stilling. 

“What if I say no? To this.” Already he’s starting to feel like he’s made some sort of mistake, but it’s too late to go back now, to deny what he’s said. 

Gabriel’s eyebrows push together at the idiocy of the question. “I’ll stop? Obviously? You know I would never do something you didn’t want. We’re doing this because you asked, remember?” He steps back, appraising, letting the hem of Crowley’s robe fall from his fingers. “Do you not want to help us anymore? You’ve been so helpful—an exemplary worker, really. The best Eve we’ve got.” 

“No!” Crowley says immediately. “No, of course not. I mean, thank you, yes, I want to help.” 

“Well,” says Gabriel with a shrug, “this has been pretty helpful, is all I can say.” And then he stares at Crowley, expectantly, waiting for an answer. 

“Then I…want to do this?” Does he? He wants to be helpful, he knows that for sure. The best thing he can do for his boss’s boss is be helpful. “Please. Yes.” 

“That’s the spirit!” Gabriel is back on him now, pulling at his robe with renewed vigor. “Work hard, play hard, and if you do what you love you’ll never work a day in your life. Right?” But he’s not actually asking questions anymore. 

Maybe, Crowley thinks as Gabriel turns him over so his chest lies against the marble, it’s simply different for angels. He’s not human, after all, and neither is Gabriel, so perhaps they can’t really do this the human way. Maybe this is is just the best approximation. Maybe he should be grateful. 

He promises himself that next time they meet he’ll tell Gabriel that, that he’s grateful, but he never gets the opportunity. Because the next time his visits Gabriel’s office, Gabriel isn’t alone. There are two other archangels standing behind the desk, Michael on his right, Uriel on his left. Crowley bows, cautiously, wondering if Gabriel means to make this meeting a demonstration. There’s never been anyone else here before, and the thought of an audience makes his insides pitch and roll for reasons he can’t articulate. 

“Sit down,” says Michael, in lieu of greeting, nodding towards the lone chair in front of the desk. Crowley obeys, hands twisting his robe so it’s harder to tell that they’ve picked up a slight tremor. 

“Gabriel came to us yesterday with a slate of truly shocking allegations,” says Uriel. “We have some questions that we’d like to ask you.” 

“Of course,” says Crowley, trying desperately to see where the conversation might be going. “I am…at your service.” But Uriel is already talking again. 

“Gabriel tells us that you have threatened to disseminate classified information in exchange for being moved to stars and constellations.” 

“Classified information about humans,” Michael clarifies, “which you saw on his desk when you came to deliver a message. And which you demanded more of as a price for your continued silence.” 

Despite that fact that he’s sitting down Crowley feels horribly off balance, like that one time Gabriel had wrapped a hand around his throat and squeezed so hard that the stars he’d been working on appeared behind his eyelids. He looks to Gabriel, waiting for him to say something, to explain, but he just nods as if he, too, is expecting Crowley’s answer. 

“That’s not—I never—“ 

“Then why were you moved to stars and constellations?” presses Uriel. 

“I—I don’t know, no one ever told me.” They hadn’t, had they? It had all been so fast. He’d always assumed that Gabriel had—had— 

“It did not escape our notice that your so-called promotion put you much closer to Gabriel,” says Michael. “Your new coworkers have been telling us that you’ve had quite a number of one-on-one meetings together, alone in his office. Is that correct?” 

“Yes but I didn’t—I didn’t—he asked me,” says Crowley, hating the way his voice has started to quaver. “It wasn’t like that. He said it was a special project.” 

“A special project?” Uriel sounds unconvinced. “What was the nature of this special project?” 

“It was about the humans,” he starts, and then falters. How can he even begin to explain? This wasn’t sketchbooks and models and board meetings, this was something else entirely. 

“Humans.” Michael’s voice is nearly flat, except for the curl of disgust. “You asked for classified knowledge about the humans.” 

And that’s the rub, isn’t it? He’d asked for it. Every meeting, every touch, every time Gabriel laid him out across the desk. Gabriel had asked if he’d wanted to try it, and he’d said yes, over and over again. Yes to the things he wasn’t supposed to know about, yes to the things he shouldn’t have done. The only thing he can do is nod yes once more. 

The archangels’ expressions don’t shift an inch as they come around the other side of the desk. Michael grabs Crowley’s arm and hauls him out of the chair in one swift motion, dragging him towards to office door. He’s so stunned he can’t protest, can’t even breathe, but even so casts one last pleading look at Gabriel as he’s marched out of the office. Gabriel doesn’t meet his eye, doesn’t even look at him, already turning back to his paperwork. The last thing Crowley sees is the glass display case on the corner of his desk, two little light figures glowing inside, entwined around each other and moving back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, until the door to Gabriel’s office slams shut. 

Falling from Heaven takes a long, long time, and it burns the whole way down. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Six thousand years later, give or take...

He’s been trying to figure out, in the few hours since they decoded Agnes’s last prophecy, if there’s a way he can ask Aziraphale without actually asking. 

_Oh yeah by the way, just wondering, did the archangel Gabriel ever happen to, I dunno, fuck you over his desk like an underpaid secretary? Once? Twice? So many times you lost count? Just curious. No Reason._

Aziraphale is folded into one corner of Crowley’s elegant white sofa, considering the sheen of rum at the bottom of his tumbler. Crowley is lying on the floor, because some time in the 70s he’d installed half a mile of hot water pipes under the tile, and the heat leaching through his body can convince the snakier parts of his brain to calm down, even if the more human ones are still running at full speed. 

_What do you think the odds are that Gabriel will take advantage of your, that is to say, my, impending demise and the resultant lack of witnesses in order to, well, take advantage? Not that he would, but he just has that face, you know?_

He’s more sober than he wants to be for this conversation, but he’s also not ready to give up his last thread of control. Aziraphale is well on his way towards intoxication, although their impending executions seems to have shaved off some of his chattier edges. The loudest sound in the Mayfair flat right now is the hissing steam of the pipes and the rumble of late-night traffic filtering up from several stories down.

_Is there anything you want me to know about you and Gabriel before I go and face him myself? Wouldn’t want to break character Up There. Bit of a tough crowd._

It still feels unbelievable, even with the prophecy, to think that he’ll be going back. Falling isn’t supposed to be a two-way street—there would be no point in making someone Fall if they could just crawl back up again. Sending an angel to Hell is one thing. Sending a demon back to Heaven feels like another thing entirely. 

“Do you think they'll do anything to me? Before the hellfire, I mean.” As far as opening gambits for tough conversations go, it’s a pretty poor one. But at least there’s no going back now. 

Aziraphale picks at some invisible speck of lint on his knee. 

“Oh, I don’t think that’s very likely. Why, are you worried they’ll—” he stops fidgeting for a moment, glancing anxiously at Crowley. “Do you think something might happen to me Down There? Before?” 

“Nah,” says Crowley, stretching and then resettling against the warm tile. “Execution’s a spectator sport. They’ll keep it above board.” Aziraphale snorts into his glass before draining the rest of the rum. 

“Above board indeed.” 

“What, you don’t think demons have rules? Trust me, you couldn’t keep the legions of Hell in line without a few bylaws in place.” Satan, is he really going to have to spell this out letter by letter? “Seriously though, no circuitous routes through empty hallways, no getting pulled into mysterious rooms, no detours to Gabriel’s office?” 

“What would I be doing in Gabriel’s office?” Aziraphale looks as though he’s lost the plot somewhere. Crowley tries for a noncommittal shrug, which is made somewhat more challenging by his horizontal position. 

“Same things lots of CEOs do alone in their office with pretty young subordinates.” 

This is probably one of those moments that calls for some meaningful eye contact, but Crowley can’t bring himself to make that happen. His sunglasses are somewhere on the kitchen’s marble countertop. He misses them terribly. 

It takes a moment for Aziraphale to catch his meaning. 

“Are you implying that I—“ he splutters, loses his place, finds it again, “—a relationship with Gabriel, I would never! He’s an archangel. I’m appalled you would even suggest such a thing.” He glares down at his empty glass. “I can’t believe you—six thousand years, and you somehow think that I would—why would you even ask me that?” 

“Well,” says Crowley, “I’m about to go waltzing back through the pearly gates to get executed while _wearing your body_ , so I’d rather not have any surprises if it’s all the same to you.” 

“You mean surprises like me having—me having an intimate relationship with one of my superiors.” Aziraphale waves a hand and his glass is abruptly full of rum again. 

“Yeah. Sure. Whatever you want to call it.” Something about the phrase “intimate relationship” makes his skin prickle, but Crowley shoves it down as best he can. 

“Well, it’s never going to happen, because I would never do that sort of thing. I’m not that kind of person.” 

“I didn’t say you were,” says Crowley, trying very, very hard not to snap. He should not have done this sober. “I’m not asking about you.” 

It’s enough to make Aziraphale pause for a moment, head cocked to the side, staring at Crowley as though the real meaning of his question might be hidden on his face somewhere, inscribed on his body, corporeal or otherwise. Then he shakes his head, firmly, twice. 

“Absolutely not. Gabriel would never do anything like that.” 

Crowley laughs, although he doesn’t mean to. It’s not much of a laugh, probably because it isn’t much of a joke—a short, biting sound of disbelief, before he manages to wind it back again. 

Not fast enough though. 

“Crowley?” 

Crowley fixes his eyes firmly on the ceiling, and wills himself not to flinch. 

He waits for Aziraphale to say something else—ask a question, deny him again, change the subject entirely. But the silence drags on, crescendos, even, and the tile is starting to feel hard against the press of his spine. He risks a look then, neck twisting slightly but inhumanly, to where a half-empty glass trembles in Aziraphale’s hand. 

Aziraphale’s eyes are shining. 

“Oh, no, angel,” Crowley untwists himself from the floor, scrambling up onto the sofa. “Don’t go crying on me now, yeah?” The glass flickers with barely a thought, relocated to the floor with the soft clink of cut crystal meeting tile. The noise seems to snap Aziraphale back to reality. 

“You—” he looks stricken, in the most literal sense, as if Crowley had backhanded him across the face as opposed to...whatever this conversation has turned into. It takes a moment, in his floundering, to produce a question: “When?” 

Crowley feels like he’s floating, unmoored from himself and drifting far away, even though the space between then is barely an arm’s length. 

“A while ago. Before…” Before the Garden, before the Earth to put the Garden on, certainly before two beings stood at the top of a wall together, watching the first humans walk out into the desert. Perhaps before one of those beings even existed. Perhaps before both. 

“Before we met,” he finishes, somewhat lamely, as if that isn’t a given. He wonders distantly if there’s a barrage of questions waiting, if he could answer any more questions without the words choking him. Aziraphale looks on the verge of tears, but Crowley can’t seem to manifest any himself. Where he supposed there should be a tightness in his chest all he can feel is a yawning hollow, like his emotions have all been scooped out with a melon baller. He thinks he might be shaking. 

Aziraphale surprises him, though, by not offering any more questions. Instead he stares out the window for a moment, in the midst of some inebriated calculation, before reaching out and pulling Crowley into his chest in what can only be described as a hug. He’s crying now, properly, warm tears dripping down onto Crowley’s neck and soaking the collar of his shirt. 

“I didn’t know,” he whispers into the crook of Crowley’s neck. “I had no idea.” 

“‘S okay.” Crowley feels the worn cotton of his shirt, soft against his cheek. “You couldn’t have. You never asked.” 

Aziraphale makes a wounded noise at that, fingers digging into the back of Crowley’s jacket, as if it is a condemnation rather than a simple fact. He had never asked, yes, and Crowley had never told him. Crowley might never have told him. 

Aziraphale, seeming to remember something, holds Crowley out by his shoulders, far enough that he can make watery eye contact. 

“But will you be alright? Going back?” 

Crowley has to think about that for a moment. 

“Think so. Long as nothing happens. It’s been six thousand years, give or take.” Six thousand years of white-knuckling his way through a certain sort of temptation, of analyzing every moment he remembered and berating himself for every stupid choice he’d made, of screaming his throat raw at them, at Her, at anyone that might still be listening, until the sharpest edges of memory had finally started to wear down. 

“If something happened it would be a great surprise to me,” says Aziraphale with a touch of bitterness. 

Crowley should probably respond to that, offer counter arguments or perhaps even reassurances, but the idea of trying to form words is starting to feel like too complex a task. Instead he goes limp, collapsing back towards Aziraphale, and Aziraphale pulls him back into the soft security of his chest. It might have been an awkward thing for someone who wasn’t really a snake—legs tucked at odd angles, spine curled just a bit too far to one side. But Crowley is still a snake in many ways, for better and for worse, and the snakier parts of his brain are starting to agree with the human ones that Aziraphale is a superior comfort to heated tile floors, at least right now. 

He doesn’t realize he’s nearly fallen asleep until Aziraphale speaks again, quietly. 

“My dear, would you mind telling me where you put my glass?” 

“Oh,” says Crowley, voice creaking a little. “‘S just on the floor. Didn’t want you to get rum all over my sofa.” 

Aziraphale hums at that, though he makes no move towards his drink. He seems content to hold Crowley against his chest, one hand cradled gently at the base of his skull, fingers slowly carding through his hair. Crowley thinks he should protest at that perhaps, being scratched behind the ears like a cat, but the sharp thing which has lodged itself inside him is starting to dull with exhaustion. He feels the shimmer of a miracle through Aziraphale’s body, the way he sits a little straighter in his newfound sobriety, even as Crowley starts to doubt his own ability to stand. 

“If you would like to sleep,” Aziraphale whispers, in a voice Crowley feels more than he hears, “I will wake you when it’s time to go.” 

Crowley doesn’t sleep, ultimately, still too wired from the previous week’s events and the prophecy to come. He’s tired enough though that he drifts into a lazy half-consciousness, lost in the perfect metronome beat of Aziraphale’s heart, until the sun begins to lighten the purple edge of the sky. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is this wildly out of character? Maybe! Should it have been published a month and a half ago? Probably! Is it entirely self-serving? Absolutely! 
> 
> Look, sometimes when things are bad what you really need is someone else to look at you and go “wow, that is extremely bad, I’m so sorry.” So that’s what this is. 
> 
> Thanks to everyone who commented on the first part of this (especially because you very kindly ignored the fact that I published it with like ten typos. Whoops). When I had major doubts about this I would often go back and reread all the lovely things you’d said. Sorry for leaving you with no resolution for way too long, and also for the fact that this probably does not meet eight week’s worth of expectations. C’est la vie.

**Author's Note:**

> Do you ever start filling a prompt on a whim and suddenly you're 2k words in and it's not about the prompt anymore but your own weird problems? Yeah. First time writing anything explicit, so, uh, please be gentle in comments.
> 
> Like I said in the tags, this is only Hurt No Comfort for the moment. I have a skeleton of a comforting sequel which should be added as a second chapter...eventually. I probably should've waited until I wrote that/edited this more before publishing but I just kinda had to put this out there. 
> 
> I have an [AO3 email newsletter](buttondown.email/unsmilingchuck), partly because I am the sort of vain person who wants to have an email newsletter, and partly because it feels like a nice compromise between bare-bones AO3 subscriptions and linking things to tumblr. It mostly just provides updates about what I'm publishing/currently working on, with the option to reply if that suits your fancy.
> 
> Comments unfailingly make my day, and I do my best to reply to them all even if it takes me a day or two.


End file.
